HRF was pleased to co-sponsor this year's
International Training Program in New Crops: Aromatic and Medicinal
Plants, held June 19-30 at Purdue University in West Lafayette,
Indiana. The Purdue Horticulture Department's Center for New Crops
and Plant Products has hosted the intensive two-week workshop
each year since 1993, offering instruction to scientists, natural
products industry representatives, graduate students, health care
professionals, and government officers from around the world.
Students participate in lectures, discussions, field trips, and
laboratory sessions that focus on medicinal, aromatic, and spice
plants and their extractable products. This year, highlights included
a tour of the laboratories at a large wholesale botanical trading
company and a visit to the Hoosier National Forest to view native
populations of goldenseal and ginseng. Participants also traveled
to Chicago to attend classes at the University of Illinois School
of Pharmacy, which also co-sponsors the event.

The program's founder and director, James
Simon, PhD of Purdue University, works to give attendees an interdisciplinary
perspective on the industry and the research behind it. This approach
allows participants with different backgrounds - for example,
an essential oil quality control specialist, a manufacturer wanting
to step up medicinal plant production, or a researcher engaged
in "bioprospecting" for new medicinal plant compounds - to gain
a broader understanding of various aspects of the industry. The
opportunity to network with other industry members is especially
valuable to participants from developing nations, where commercialization
of natural products is often a fledgling industry. Of this year's
37 participants, 27 were from foreign countries, including Madagascar,
South Africa, Tanzania, New Zealand, France, Egypt, China, and
Brazil.

As part of the program, HRF President Rob
McCaleb presented classes on the international marketplace, marketing
and product development, and the future of herbs and medicinal
plants in American and European healthcare. Other instructors
included Dr. Steve Weller of Purdue University, who taught a class
on the role of bioengineering in the industry's future, and Drs.
Mario Morales and Roberto Vieira, who directed a plant-breeding
practicum. McCaleb has been involved for several years in the
Purdue program, which he asserts is "the most diverse education
program for international students and business people in the
field of medicinal and aromatic plants." Attendees at this year's
course were especially impressed with Purdue's new state-of-the-art
greenhouse facilities. Conditions inside the greenhouses are controlled
and monitored by computer, allowing researchers to adjust temperature,
light, or moisture settings via an Internet connection anywhere
in the world.

Beginning in 2001, the training program
will move with Dr. Simon to Rutgers University in New Jersey.
For information on next year's program, contact Jim Simon at Rutgers
University: (732) 932-9711, ext. 355. - Nancy Hoegler, HRF